


My Death Killed You Just the Same

by liaskywalkerl



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Afterlife, Angst, F/M, Gen, Padmé isn’t impressed, Sad, Vader is miserable, Whump, based on my tears ricochet by taylor swift, ghost - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:47:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27719072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liaskywalkerl/pseuds/liaskywalkerl
Summary: It was as if he was cursed to suffer from every single tear she spilled on Mustafar, tears that would tear him apart for all the remaining of his mediocre existence.Based on My Tears Ricochet by Taylor Swift
Relationships: Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, anidala - Relationship
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30





	My Death Killed You Just the Same

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the song “My Tears Ricochet” by Taylor Swift. Really recommend listening to it while reading!

Over the years, Padmé found out that no matter how much she learned in lessons while in school and in all the detailed protocols as Queen, there was still a lot about life she would never truly understand.

Death, to her enormous surprise, wouldn’t be any different.

The Jedi beliefs of death and life weren’t unfamiliar to her; everyone at least once in their life had listened about how they viewed the afterlife— when you would be one with the force.

Padmé couldn’t be sure of what was happening, what happened, or _how_ it was happening. So, she held onto this small piece of an explication, the product of the Jedi religion she never understood, but now was the only bit of her reality that made sense. 

The senator was not certain if this was death, but she was convinced from the moment she realised she existed again, that this wasn’t life. 

Life never felt this empty. 

And when she was alive, she could go anywhere she wanted to.

Now, she can go anywhere, just not home.

  
Her home had turned to ashes long ago.

Padmé’s dark eyes were dry— not in a reflection of her emotions, but due to the unfamiliarity of her circumstances —,as she walked down the maimed steps of the senate building. The woman looked, feeling nothing but emptiness, at the walls of the place where so many of her dreams and aspirations were made possible.

Not only hers, but also the ones of all the people she had fought for. Now, they weren’t any different from the broken pillars and tiles on the floor; destroyed beyond repair.

By the hand of the one she had loved the most. 

The reality was too painful to accept, but it was also disturbingly undeniable. Anakin was responsible for this. He was the one that put down everything she had worked for, everything she loved and was passionate about.

She wondered how the hero flying around the galaxy giving hope to so many, the one that loved her so sweetly and so selflessly could have torn down the same hope that he had given to the people who longed for a future in peace, and how he could have taken her life– in every sense of it— so heartlessly and selfishly. 

Padmé’s heart had dropped like a battleship sinking between the waves of the galaxy, and she doubted she would ever recover.

  
  


She stared at her home, now made of ashes.

Ashes, durasteel limbs, mechanisms hardwired into his chest,optical sensors—

And so, so very cold.

And she felt nothing.

Empty.

This was the man she had sworn to herself she wouldn’t be able to live without, and the man that made her feel complete and in total connection with life. The man she wanted to spent the rest of it with.

Padmé looked to the jappor snippet on her wrist, now forever attached to her being. The jewel he had given her so many years ago and the one she had taken care of all her life. The pendant he had carved to her with his own hands, the one Padmé wore as she was buried for a death that he also brought upon her by the very same ones.

If Anakin sensed she was with him on his meditation chambers, he didn’t let it show.

Padmé thought that, maybe- just maybe, she felt a flash of pity echo through her body as she watched him clumsily, and without any practice,– still unfamiliar to the rigid metal limbs–remove his heavy mask, but decided that this wasn’t possible. There wasn’t any room for pity here.

She had loved him. Really loved Anakin like she never loved anyone before, and she could swear this to him a thousand times, but now she felt as if he could tear her apart a thousand times more just to prove how much he didn’t believe her.

To prove just how much of a liar she is.

_Can you live a lie, Anakin?_

_Can he?_ The question crawled up to her mind once again.

Soon enough, she realised that, yes. He can live a lie.

When Darth Sidious asked Anakin about her, the reply came quick–his low, lifeless, mechanic voice produced by the vocabulator said without a glimpse of hesitation:

_— She no longer has any meaning to me._ — there was a pause marked by the sharp, incessant and rhythmic breath that followed Anakin like a shadow.— _Senator Amidala was a traitor._

And that was all of it.

She knew this wasn’t true, of course.

If she didn’t have any meaning to him, he wouldn’t scream her name every night while he was asleep.

If she were dead to him–if she didn't have any meaning to him anymore–,he wouldn’t stay up wide awake in the middle of the night because staring into the pitch-black emptiness of the room was a better option than risk falling asleep and meeting with his loved one on his dreams.   
  


A torture disguised as a small mercy. He got to see her, yes. But, every night he would feel his life– hers, as well–slip away from his fingers once again and he couldn’t do nothing about it. As if he was surrounded with fountains and more fountains of pure clean water but would never be able to ease his thirst. As if no matter how starved he was, he would never be able to reach for a fruit in a tree. Cursed with agony for all eternity.

The more Anakin dreamed of the life he could never return to, the less he knew of how to deal with with the increasing and overwhelming pain and rage that morphed into an absolute sense of numbness that made him wonder if he was even alive at all.

In the end, and on their own way, both had turned into phantoms.

Death had arrived for both just the same.

But, Padmé knew for sure, she wasn't dead to Anakin. If she were, he wouldn't be wide awake, cursing her name or wishing she was still there.

It was as if he was destined to suffer for every single tear she spilled on Mustafar, tears that would tear him apart for all the remaining of his mediocre existence. 

Padmé didn't know how to feel– or if she was even feeling anything at all. But she could still reflect on the situation, how he was the one- in a certain point of view-, responsible for her fate. And how now he missed her with every bit of his scarred soul.  
  


Did he ever loved her at all?

Once again, Padmé felt like she was a battleship sinking between the galaxy, but at the same time utterly unaware of her surroundings.

At the same time, she felt at peace. Light.  
  


Anakin had turned into his worst fear:

The darkness that would take everything he cared for from his life and never give it back.

Death, Padmé had begun to notice, still had a lot to teach to her. And, as a good student, she was eager to learn.  
  


She was dead, but so was Anakin.

When he killed her, he had killed himself just the same.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
